Funny Day

On Saturday, Jennifer and I went to Vinnysta. The primary purpose of our trip was to buy train tickets to Kiev. Jennifer is going to Kiev this week for her mid-service medical check-up and I’m going to Kiev next week for an in service training/language refresher. To ensure a spot on the train, tickets must be purchased in advance. For Jennifer and me, this means taking the hour trip into Vinnysta, which I don’t mind. I like going into the big city and I like meeting up with the volunteers who live there.

There are three volunteers in Vinnysta who all happen to be married, two of them to each other and the other to a Ukrainian. Jennifer and I met the two couples outside of the McDonalds at one o’clock. We stood in the cold for half an hour waiting to see if any other volunteers from the region would show up, but none did. So the six of us walked to McCloud’s Pub a few blocks away for lunch. Lunch was delicious, but the beer was a little disappointing. McCloud’s had an entire menu page devoted to beer, but they only had one kind you could actually get. Of course, our server couldn’t just tell us so, we had to find out by process of elimination. It was actually rather funny. It was like when Darcy, Josh, Tony and I went to the Hemp Museum in Germany. We went downstairs to the Hemp Café and Josh tried to order some hemp cake but they didn’t have it. Then he tried to order hemp bread, but they didn’t have any hemp bread either. So he tried to order some hemp tea, but no. Everything that he tried to order, the woman said they didn’t have. Exasperated, Josh finally asked, “Well what do you have?!” They had pre-bottled juice. Juice they didn’t even make at the hemp café. That was it. Like McCloud’s, the Hemp Café had a one item menu.

After lunch, we walked back towards McDonalds and the center of town. We stopped to visit a big Orthodox church that was on our way. The church was dark inside, lit only by the light of flickering prayer candles. It was quiet and peaceful. There was an old woman mopping the floor. Everywhere you go here, there are women mopping the floors cleaning up the snow and mud people track in on their shoes. I can’t think of a more infuriating job then constantly mopping and never actually having the floor be clean. I think the old woman mopping at the church was herself, feeling a bit fed up. A young girl came in to light a candle and pray. The girl started walking towards one of the altars and when she came a bit too close to the clean floor, the old woman muttered under her breath and made like she was going to chase the young girl with the mop. Startled, the girl went to a different alter. It was funny.

Jennifer and I caught the last bus back to our town at 6:30. The bus wasn’t full, thankfully, because I think if it had been full, it never would have made it to Bar. It was literally, the little bus that could. Anytime we were going up a slight incline, the bus would slow down to a crawl and anytime we were going down an incline, the bus would speed up rapidly. It was almost like being on roller coasting that slowly creeps up the tracks only to barrel down except we never gained enough momentum to keep the ride going. About 20 minutes outside of Bar, the bus stopped to pick up a man who was clearly drunk. The man got on the bus, but rather than sit down in one of the many available seats, he insisted upon standing in the stairway by the door. He stood swaying back and forth, holding onto the railing every once in awhile resting his face against the side of the bus.

A few minutes after picking him up, the bus stopped again to pick up another passenger. The drunk guy didn’t notice that the bus stopped or that the doors were opening. He just kept standing in the stairwell. The bus door slid open inwardly and got stuck because the drunk guy was in the way. The doors sandwiched him against the railing he had been holding onto. The driver told him to move, but I guess he didn’t hear. He just kept standing all smushed with a dreamy look on his face. The driver closed the door and opened it again only to sandwich the guy a second time. Finally, the person trying to get on the bus shouted at him and he got out the way. Rather then moving to an actual seat, the drunk guy continued to stand in the stairway and sway. The bus stopped again and again, the bus door smashed him; again, he had to be hollered at to move. This happened four different times and by the last time, Jennifer and I were laughing out loud at him. Just the sight, the very sight of a drunk guy being sandwiched by the bus door again and again and again, oh man, I don’t even think words can do justice to how funny it was.